“Fancy Going to the Empire of Death” in THE GUARDIAN
My article on “dark tourism” and our desire to visit places associated with death is out in The Guardian today, featuring some stunning photos by
THE BUTCHERING ART – Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You!
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be working with FSG-Scientific American (an imprint of Macmillan) on a book project. The Butchering Art will take readers on a
“Scary Sexual Devices” in PENTHOUSE!
I’m excited to announce that my article on “Scary Sexual Devices from the Past” is featured in PENTHOUSE this month, no doubt killing the mood of
Dead Men’s Eyes: A History of Optography
Aurora, Illinois. 16 February 1914. It was a cold, wintery night when Theresa Hollander’s father discovered her broken and bloodied body near a shed in St. Nicholas’s Cemetery. The 20-year-old (pictured below) had been brutally beaten to death with a wooden club, which had been discarded along with the girl’s corpse amongst the tombstones. Much to her father’s horror, Theresa’s eyes were wide open, her hands clutched in frozen agony.
The Embalmed Soldiers of the American Civil War
Thomas Holmes—the “Father of Modern Embalming”—had an unusual way of advertising his services throughout the American Civil War. During one of his many excursions to the front, the surgeon plucked the body of an unknown soldier from the battlefield and brought it back to Washington D.C. There, he washed the corpse and injected it with his patented “safe” embalming fluid, which he claimed was free from toxins. He then dressed the soldier in a fine set of clothes and put him on display in his shop window for all to see.
Robert Hooke and the Dog’s Lung: Animal Experimentation in History
In 1664, Robert Hooke—a pioneering member of the Royal Society and lead scientific thinker of his day—decided to investigate the mechanisms involved in breathing. In